Sherdog Official Mixed Martial Arts Rankings

Two Remain

Aug 12, 2009

In the last three weeks, four of MMA's divisional champions were in
action. Only two of them remain.

At UFC 101, middleweight king Anderson
Silva showed why he's MMA's pound-for-pound king, as he
completely destroyed former UFC light heavyweight champion Forrest
Griffin in an explosive beatdown. The performance, one of the
finest in Silva's career, has already got fans and pundits alike
sizing him up against the rest of the light heavyweight elite.

Just after Silva turned in his show-stealing effort, B.J. Penn
entrenched himself as the top lightweight in the sport with a
masterful and mature performance against top contender Kenny
Florian. Penn thwarted all the offense of "Ken Flo" before
polishing him off in a dominating fourth round.

The lighter champions were not quite as fortunate.

Though his Shooto 123-pound world championship wasn't at stake,
Shinichi "BJ"
Kojima squared off with fast-rising Brazilian prospect Jussier
"Formiga" da Silva, the Shooto South America champion. Kojima
turned in another underwhelming performance and was soundly handled
by "Formiga," who figures to rematch Kojima for his title later
this year.

Miguel
Torres was a pound-for-pound entrant and expected to reign with
impunity over the bantamweight division. However, in Torres’ fourth
defense of his WEC bantamweight title, unbeaten challenger Brian
Bowles had different ideas. Bowles flattened Torres in the
first round and put a new face atop the developing division.